Forty-two. That was the number of striped lines Jack counted down the center of the road before they blurred in the distance. Forty-two. Was there some secret code to be deciphered from that number? Seven squared? No, that was forty-nine. Forty-two. Perfect number times imperfect number. Forty-two, the ultimate answer to everything.
He stared at the charging horse on the steering wheel. Mane and tail blown back, racing west with reckless abandon. Now, all the horses were silent. The Mustang sat grazing on gravel and asphalt.
Jack checked his watch. 3:13 p.m. Another number. Probably some Scripture verse talking about the end of the world, telling him how he was in this mess by his own hand. No matter how many times he checked his iPhone, it remained dead.
He would give his left arm for a “get out of the desert” app right now.
Laura sat in the passenger seat quietly. She was lost in a daydream, staring at the mountains. Her skin glistened in the sun. She hadn’t spoken for a while, and Jack was fine with this. She was upset when he had returned to the car, but now her mood had shifted down several degrees.
They waited.
Jack remembered seeing a movie a couple years back where a couple went scuba diving off the coast of Florida. They reemerged to find their boat gone, and they were left to drift in the open ocean, waiting for help to come. It never did. He remembered sitting in the theater, chomping on his popcorn, enjoying the spectacle of other people’s misery from the comfort of his seat. Now he knew what that couple had felt. He wondered if people would watch his story with the same enthused detachment.
Periodically they would take turns getting out of the car to walk up and down the road, as if by some physical effort they could will a traveler into existence. Their eyes scanned the horizon repeatedly for any sign of life but always came up with the same outcome.
They were completely alone.